The Charge

Charming. Unorthodox. Expert. Killer.

The Case

So you think your job is tough?

Patrick Jane (Simon Baker, The Killer
Inside Me), criminal consultant for the California Bureau of Investigation
(CBI), begins The Mentalist: The Complete Fourth Season by getting fired
and imprisoned for the cold-blooded murder of a man he's convinced is Red John.
Red is an eternally evasive serial killer who slaughtered Jane's wife and
daughter nine years ago, presumably to teach him a lesson in humility. Imagine
the egg on his face, when Jane realizes the man he killed wasn't Red John after
all!

Season's end finds our hero apparently deep in the throes of a Mentalist
breakdown. He's completely estranged from his former CBI colleagues and has
relocated to Las Vegas, where he's hitting the bottle hard, and up to his old
tricks in order to make ends meet; squeezing hard cash from easy marks with
phony readings of all sorts. Despite keeping a low profile for most of the year,
the spectre of Red John has returned with a vengeance, and the body count
spikes.

How The Mentalist beats his murder rap (despite committing the crime
in broad daylight before a crowded shopping mall full of witnesses), regains his
consulting credentials, and rejoins the bureau team headed up by senior agent
Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney, Open Window)
for a seriously addictive set of crime-busting adventures is for you to find
out. The less I tell you, the more exciting your twenty four episode trawl will
be.

Before agreeing to review The Mentalist: The Complete Fourth Season,
I was virtually clueless about this primetime perennial. I knew the title
character was played by the same blond Brit who headed up another hourlong CBS
drama (The Guardian) I'd completely
missed a decade earlier…without one whit of regret. There was something
about Simon Bakers's smirking good looks; a perceived smugness that raised my
hackles.

That's what I get for judging a bloke by his cover! Baker is nothing short
of magnificent here, a master juggler of emotional hues, and perfectly adept at
conveying a charlatan's sincerity. Likewise, Tunney provides a perfect
counter-weight as Lisbon; nominally his superior, but more practically his
partner. The pair operate as a dynamic tag team, with Lisbon sagely tempering
Jane's sleight-of-hand manipulations, and checking his inclination to color
outside the lines of protocol and procedure.

The rest of the team is equally solid, if somewhat more restrained. Though
Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti, The O.C.)
is still understandably reeling from the shock of having to fatally wound her
fiance at the conclusion of the previous season, partners Rigby (Owain Yeoman,
Kitchen Confidential) and Cho
(Tim Kang, Rambo) each get
romantic subplots this time out. Considering the extremely focused workaday
nature of these characters, such sidebars are usually the kiss of death, but
these particular diversions manage to avoid detracting from the real focus of
the series, affording Yeoman and Kang the opportunity to play more than
strictly-business men. Cho's dalliance with a paid CBI informant and former
prostitute (superbly played by Samaire Armstrong) works spectacularly well,
defying incredible odds and providing one of the season's most satisfying
arcs.

Warner Bros. is obviously looking to satisfy as many customers as it can
with this handsomely packaged set. Aside from crisp and clean episodes presented
in standard def 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, there are a pair of audio options
(English and Portuguese) vividly rendered in Dolby 5.1 surround. We also get no
less than six subtitle options, allowing for quite a chunk of the earth's
population to follow the proceedings. The lone bonus feature—"CBI: Behind
The Badge"—features The Mentalist creator Bruno Heller (Rome) and his cast of regulars expounding on
the prep work involved in making their character portrayals ring technically
true. They're also joined by a posse of real criminal investigators, attesting
to the show's success. We also receive a colorful, photo-studded booklet with
episode synopses tucked into the case for further enjoyment.

I can't remember enjoying an hourlong drama from any of "the big three"
networks in at least a decade. But given the quality of these episodes and their
top notch presentation, I don't believe it possible to attain further enjoyment,
short of Robin Tunney making a guest appearance in my life.

The Verdict

Not Guilty.

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